ASP projects

The Age of Smart Factories: New ICT for the Automotive Supply Chain of the future

The ASP project “The Age of Smart Factories: New ICT for the Automotive Supply Chain of the Future” was commissioned to the group by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Centro Ricerche Fiat with the aim of presenting the students with some concrete and specific issues affecting a complex automotive supply chain, in order to analyse the currently available technologies and come up with multidisciplinary enhancement proposals in line with the corporate values of reliability, transparency and innovation.
The project team was guided through the problems with the help of the internal coordinators and external tutors, whose remarkable availability is worthy of mention. This phase was followed by a state of the art analysis and field studies, which eventually led to three separate proposals, each one addressing a specific area of interest: robotics implementation in warehouse management, use of augmented reality technologies in outbound logistics, and employment of advanced systems for automatic identification and tracking for inbound logistics.
The third proposal, envisioning a combination of RFID and GPS capabilities through the use of cellular-like solutions operating in a Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN), proved to be the most attractive under a business perspective, and was therefore further elaborated with the development of a comprehensive feasibility study, suggesting a sustainable path to follow in order to ensure a smooth and efficient implementation of the new technologies. Moreover, the management and mathematical skills of the team were coupled in the formulation of a cost sensibility function able to model the costs distribution at the variation of pre-determined parameters, resulting crucial in the evaluation of the long-term financial benefits of the potential investment. Finally, the creative mind-set of group members was key in developing an innovative tag prototype with enhancements in both shape and materials, proving once more the benefits of multidisciplinary teamwork.
The project team was able to produce a proposal representing a considerable enhancement to current solutions, allowing for bi-directional communications between a number of devices interconnected in an integrated network. Its implementation could potentially result in improvements in the quality of information collected, its quantity and its reliability, contributing to the shift towards a more transparent supply chain, ready to tackle the challenges that the Internet of Things is creating for the automotive industry.

Principal academic Tutors
Paolo Neirotti, Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino
Emilio Bartezzaghi, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano
Arianna Alfieri,Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino

Academic Tutors
Raffaella Cagliano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano
Luciano Pero, Politecnico di Milano

External tutors
Leonardo Gorno, Supply Chain Management, FCA Group
Julien Etienne Mascolo, Centro Ricerche Fiat (CRF)
Giuseppe Bramante, ICT Information Systems for Manufacturing, FCA Group
Tommaso Giunti, Centro Ricerche Fiat (CRF)

Team members
Ambrosi Francesca, M.Sc. Architecture, Politecnico di Milano
Buo Ettore, M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano
Ferrieri Mauro, M.Sc. Industrial Production and Technological Innovation Engineering, Politecnico di Torino
Rivetti Alice [Team Controller and Communication Coordinator], M.Sc. Industrial Production and Technological Innovation Engineering, Politecnico di Torino
Spaggiari Martina, M.Sc. Mathematical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano
Xu Jinou, M.Sc. Management Engineering, Politecnico di Milano
Zhao Qianwen, M.Sc. Product Service System Design, Politecnico di Milano

Download the poster of the Project